Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1887-07-01
CHAPTER XVI.
FRANK MULLER'S FAMILIAR.

FRANK MULLER's FAMILIAR.
The study of the conflicting elements that
go to make up a character like Frank Mullers, |
however fascinating it might prove, is not one
that can he attempted in detail here. Such a
character in its developed form is fortunately
practically impossible in a highly civilized
country. The dead weight of the law would
crush it back to the level of the human mass
around it. But those who have lived in the
wild places of the earth will be acquainted
with its prototypes, more especially in those
places where handful of a superior race rules
over the dense thousands of an inferior Soil
tudes are favorable to the production of
strongly marked Municipalities The com
partnership of highly developed men, on the
contrary whittles Municipalities away, the
difference between their growth being the
difference between the growth of tree on a
plain aud n tree in the forest. On the plain
the tree takes the innate bent of its nature.
1t springs in majesty toward the skies; it
| spreads itself around or it slants along the
| earth Just rs nature intended that it should,
| and i'll accordance with the power of the
| providential breath that bends it. In the
forest it is different There the tree grows
| toward the light wherever the light may be.
| Forced to modify its natural habit in obedi-
| ence to the pressure of circumstances over
| which it has no CONTROL it takes such form
and height as its neighbors will allow to it,
all its energies being directed to the preserva-
ton of life, in any shape and at any sacrifice.
| Thus it is with us all. Left to ourselves, or
surrounded only by the scrub of humanity,
we become outwardly that which the spirit
within would fashion us to, but placed among
our fellows, shackled by CUSTOM restrained
by law, pruned and bent by the force of pub
Al.
the fruit bushes on garden wall The sharp
angles of our characters are fretted away by
the friction of the crowd, and we become
round and polished, and specifically, at any
rate, identical. We no longer resemble q
solitary bowlder on plain, but are as a stone
built into the great edlfice of civilized society.
The place of Il man like Frank Muller is ut
the junction of the waters of civilization and
barbarism. Too civilized to possess those
savage virtues which, such as they are, repre-
sent the quantum of innate good nature has
thought fit to allow in the mixture man, and
too barbarous to be subject to the tenderer
restraints of cultivated society, he is at once
strong in the strength of both and weak in
their weaknesses. Animated by the spirit of
barharsm, superstition and almost entirely
destitute of the spirit of civilization, mercy,
he stands OH the edge of both and an atiront
to both, rs terrific n moral spectacle the
world can afford.
Had he been little more civilized, with
his power of evil trained by education and
cynical reelection to defy the attacks of those
spaSms of unreasoning spiritual terror and
understandable passion that havc their natural
dwelling place IN the raw, strong mind Of
uu Ulivatcd man, Frank M',cr might have
bYOn,In upon the world rs a Ma, u.,uu. Had
h. been little more savage, II Little further
removed fron the unconscious hut present
influence of a progressive race, he might have
ground his fellows down and ruthlcssly
destroyed them in the madness of his rage
and lust, like an Attia or II TChaka As it
was, he was buffeted between two forces he
did not realize, even when they swayed him,
and thus at every step in his path toward a
supremacy of evil an unseen power made
stumbling blocks of weaknesses which, if that
path had been laid along "A little higher or a
little lower level in the scale of circumstance,
would themselves have been deadly weapons
of overmastering force.
See him, as with his dark heart filled up
with fears, he thunders along from the scene
of midnight death and murder his brain had
not feared to plan and his hand to execute,
Onward his black horse strides companioned
by the storm, like a dark thought travelling
on the wings of Night He does not believe
in any God, and yet the terrible fears that
spring up in his SOUL born fungus like from
a dew of blood, take shape and form, and
seem to cry aloud, 1--WE are the messengers of
the avenging God" He glances up. High
on the black bosom of the storm the finger
of the lightning is writing that awful name,
and again and again the voice of the thunder
reads it out aloud in spirit shaking accents
He shuts his dazed eyes and even the falling
rhythm of his horses hoofs beat out There is
, God there is a God" from the silent earth
on which they strike.
And so on through the tempest and the
night, flying from that which no man can
leave behind.
1t was near midnight when Frank Muller
drew rein at wretched mud hut perched by
, itself on the banks of the Naal, and flanked
I on its rear by an equally miserable shed. The
place was silent as the grave; not even a
dog barked.
, "If that beast of a Kaffir is not here, he
said aloud, II will have him logged to death
Hendrix Hendrix"
| AS he called, form rose up at his very
, feet, causing the weary horse to start back so
violently that he almost threw his rider to the
| ground
> "What in the name of the devil are youi"
| almost shrieked Frank Muller, whose nerves,
indeed, were in no condition to stand fresh
shocks.
ut is me- baas, said the form, at the same
time throwing off gray blanket in which it
was enveloped and revealing the vilainous
( countenance OF the one eyed witch doctor who
had taken the letter to Bessie, and who had
n for wears been Mullers body servant and fol